Al-Qaida: Dead or captured

--June 2002

Omar al Farouq, described variously as al-Qaida’s top man or chief facilitator in South East Asia is captured in an unnamed Asian nation and turned over to U.S. authorities for questioning.  In early September, he tells his interrogators of a plan to blow up U.S. embassies in Asia when security is reduced, leading to the Sept. 10, 2002 “yellow” alert. 

--June 21, 2002

Abu Sabaya, leader of Abu Sayyaf, the al-Qaida-linked Philippine terrorist group, was killed when he was wounded, jumped off a boat and drowned.  The boat, carrying other Abu Sayyaf leaders, was attacked by the Philippine navy off the coast of southern Zamboanga peninsula.  He  was the most prominent leader of the Abu Sayyaf, which claims to be fighting for a Muslim homeland in the south of the Philippines.

--Sept. 11, 2002 [News breaks Sept. 13]

Ramzi bin al-Shibh, the organizer of the Hamburg cell which carried out the Sept. 11 attacks, is captured in Karachi. The news is announced two days after the one-year anniversary commemorations.  Two Pakistani soldiers are wounded in the attack on Bin al-Shibh's apartment building in a residential district populated by university students.

--Early October 2002

Saif al Islam el Masry, a member of al-Qaida's Shura, or consultative council, is among 15 Arabs captured in raids by Georgian special forces in the Pankisi Gorge, a lawless enclave where Arabs and others fighting with Chechen rebels are hiding. U.S. Special Operations Forces and intelligence worked with the Georgians in the arrest.  El Masry, an Egyptian, was trained both by al-Qaida and Hezbollah. According to the U.S. federal indictment of Enaam Arnaout, executive director of the Benevolence International Foundation in Illinois, Al Islam served as an officer of Benevolence's Chechen branch. Saif al Islam el Masry fought against U.S. special forces in Somalia

--Late October 2002 [News breaks on Nov. 22]

Abd Al-Rahim al-Nashiri, director of Persian Gulf operations for al-Qaida and leading explosives expert, is captured somewhere in the Persian Gulf. Referred to by intelligence officials as a "big fish," news of his capture is held for more than two weeks. Al-Nashiri was one of the first al Qaida recruits, having been close to bin Laden for 15 years.

--Oct. 25, 2002

A Muslim cleric, Abu Qatada,  who had been named by UK authorities as being an al-Qaida fixer based in London and by a Spanish judge as al-Qaida’s European spiritual leader, is arrested by British authorities in London after being on the run for several months. He has been sentenced in absentia to life imprisonment in Jordan for a series of terrorist offences most prominently the plot to kill American tourists at three sites near Amman around the time of the millennium.

--Nov. 3, 2002

Qaed Senyan al-Harthi, al-Qaida's main man in Yemen, is killed by the Hellfire missile fired by a Predator as he was tracked in a car traveling across the desert in the Marib area of northwest Yemen along with five of his associates.  He was believed to have played a key role in the USS Cole bombing.  One of those killed is linked to the “Lackawanna Six,” six Yemeni men from Buffalo who eventually plead guilty to aiding terrorists.

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